working for the workers

It comes back to me all over again, this week, why pizza delivery is still fun - and even, in a personal sense, still sustainable: I'm working for the workers. To try to affirm, in a broader social sense, that "We're all in this together" is great, but certainly easier at some times than at others. I don't know how to feel much sympathy for, much less solidarity with, those whose economic struggle right now is that they're losing their second homes, or their investment funds, or their annual vacation plans. But a night of deliveries to the houses, apartments, and trailers of the working people of Santa Fe makes very present the sharing of our collective little survival dramas and triumphs. It's real, and right here. A couple of images from this week:

At one of the run-down little homes in the Las Acequias neighborhood: I can barely tell the woman her total, in my heavy-grade-sandpaper laryngitis voice. When she hears me she turns to her son and exclaims, "Now that's determination! On the job even when you're sick!" and he hands me a $6 tip as they all smile in understanding. In another part of town, I might worry about people going, how can you be at work - in food service, no less - when you have a cold? In this part of town, I relax because people already know the answer: how else will you pay the rent? It's just that simple.

The Cosmic Casino Game that is tip work: with just a little trust, you find that the problematic equation of minimum wage + human generosity actually does work out pretty well. If I get 2 cents from a little kid in a trailer park on one run, it's highly likely that on the next, a young tattooed couple in a motel room will give me 8 bucks. This happens all the time, all the time. And I end up wondering, how do people with regular, predictable incomes ever find it possible to learn trust? At least, in the ever-important realm of provision, which money does help to represent...

Best line of the week, speaking of the Survival Drama. The customer from an Airport Road apartment complex calls back. Wants to add 4 sides of ranch to her order. Sure, I tell her, that'll be a dollar more. "Oh my God, no," she responds. "Nevermind."